Friends Quick links
Friends President -
Newsletter Editors:
Circulation Manager - Francenia Wilson
Membership Chair -
Library Staff Liaison - 507.328.2343
Upcoming Events
Friends of the Rochester Public Library
Annual Meeting and Luncheon
Library Auditorium
Monday January 30, 2012 • 11:30 a.m.
Please join us at the Friends Annual Meeting for a delicious lunch, business meeting and a presentation by our speaker Dr. Gerald Anderson: The Mystery Story, Then and Now (and Why We All Love a Good Murder).
R.S.V.P by January 25th, 2012 gharris@rochester.lib.mn.us 328-2341
Friends Projects
Read with Me
The Read with Me program
is an updated version of the Book Bags for Babies program
started over 20 years ago.
The mother of each baby born in Rochester at Methodist and Olmsted Hospitals is presented
with a Baby Reader in English or Spanish, and information about the Rochester Public
Library. In addition, the Friends
are working with the United Way of Olmsted County to give
one book per month to each child in Olmsted County until
their fifth birthday. There are approximately 3,000 babies born each year in Olmsted
County.
The Friends of the Rochester
Public Library funds
the purchase of various furniture
items and slat wall material to
help enhance the quality and appearance
of the library. In the Children’s area, five new
wooden magazine spinner racks
improve the magazines display.
A registration table was installed
by the end of the Public Service
Desk gives room for filling out the
form to get a library card. Desks for the online computers near the Public Service Desk were also provided Slat walling was implemented for existing reference displays.
On the second floor the tower was updated with
blue slatwall that enables more
books to be displayed.
The Library is very grateful for all the Friends' help and support.
Channel One
Do you know the difference between kids who like to read and kids who don’t? BOOKS! Two ongoing local projects that help to provide needy children and adults with free books are Channel One and Community Food Response.
Channel One is a local food shelf and regional food bank that serves Southeast Minnesota and Western Wisconsin to help feed people in need. Channel One gave us floor space for book shelves, which Pat Stephenson fills with 100-175 books each week.
Channel One serves an average of 3400 households each month; 40% of those individuals are children.
Community Food Response is a private, non-profit organization founded in 1993 to meet the growing need of families to have a supplemental source of food. This program focuses on “rescuing” food from 19 different hospitals, hotels, restaurants, schools, and grocery stores that would normally be discarded at the end of the day and getting the food into the hands of individuals and families who need it. Community Food Response is open on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Over 800 adults and children go to the basement of Bethel Church each week to pick up food. Books are delivered every other week or when Pat gets a phone call saying books are running low.
Summer Reading Programs
The 2010 Children's summer reading program had just over 2380 reading logs turned in representing over 28,560 reading hours. Readers received prizes from our generous sponsors: a certificate for a free bowl of noodles at Noodles & Company, and a certificate for a free mini pizza from Papa Murphy’s, a free toy from ABC/Toy Zone, and the Friends donated a packet which contained: a bookmark, a pencil, and a toy inside a mesh backpack.
Over 4060 people came to our Summer Family FunFest. They included magicians, musicians, zoo animals, clowns, jugglers, and Rochester Honkers baseball players, storytellers and family films.
The Hooray for Saturday! programs were also a great success throughout the school year.
For current program information visit the online events calendar.
Visiting Author Visit Series
The Visiting Author Series is sponsored by the Friends of the Rochester Public Library. Visit the events calendar for future author visits.
Threads of our Community Quilt
This Quilt was a community art project that shows there is a place for all in the fabric of society.
Rochester Public Library volunteers have created a collaborative art work. This piece recognizes our diversity, celebrate the needlework and fiber art skills that reflect our different cultures and backgrounds, and promote harmony and awareness. The quilt hangs in our library as a commemoration of the skills, talent and heritage found here in our very own community.
Gail Harris and Purna Gurung, library staff, coordinated this effort.
Sponsored by: Rochester Quilters’ Sew-ciety and Rochester Community Education.
View the Library's Community Quilt page.The quilt contains 55 blocks representing 40 different countries, cultures, and backgrounds. On this web page, you can find out more about the quilters who contributed blocks, by clicking on the individual blocks of the quilt photo.
RACE
The Friends of the Library volunteered to lead facilitated discussions, and served as Lead Docents/Exhibit Assistants and Docents/Exhibit Greeters for the RACE exhibit. For more information about the RACE exhibit, visit their website.
Rochester Reads
Rochester Reads seeks to encourage community discussion, family reading, literacy, understanding, and cross-community interaction by promoting the reading of one book. Everyone is invited to participate by reading and discussing the books and attending related events in February through April 2012.
The Rochester Reads committee decided to highlight the 150th anniversary of the Civil War by selecting two books by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist/author Tony Horwitz, as well as a junior title for middle-school students, and a picture book for the pre-school-kindergarten crowd.
Confederates in the Attic: dispatches from America’s unfinished Civil War (1998), and Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War (2011) are the two adult titles. Tony Horwitz will be speaking on the topic of the Civil War and the origins of the conflict on Monday, April 9 at Willow Creek Auditorium at 7:00 p.m.
The junior title is The River Between Us by Richard Peck, and the picture book is B is for Battlecry by Minnesota author Patricia Bauer, who will be visiting several Rochester classrooms on April 10 as part of Rochester Reads.
In addition to the author visits, we will be hosting a kick-off event with Mayor Brede and the musical group The New Pearl Buttons on February 13 at the library. There will also be a number of Rochester Reads events – lectures on the Civil War, children’s & YA events, book discussion groups taking place in March and April.
All information will be available on the Rochester Reads website as programs are finalized.
2012 Rochester Reads Sponsors
Friends of the Rochester Public Library
Post-Bulletin Company
Minnesota's Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund
2012 Rochester Reads Partners
Rochester Public Library
Post-Bulletin Company
The History Center of Olmsted County
Adult and Family Literacy Program
Barnes & Noble Booksellers
Diversity Council
Rochester Public Schools
Rochester Community and Technical College
Databases/software
The Friends of the Rochester Public Library also purchase/renew software and database subscriptions. Some of these include:
Ancestry Library edition Genealogy Search
IN LIBRARY USE ONLY. Over 4 billion records from US and international sources like censuses, vital records, immigration records, family histories, military records, court and legal documents, directories, photos, maps, and more.
Heritage Quest Online
Over 25,000 family and local history books can be viewed online, and are searchable by every word in the text. Persi, the periodical source index, gives a subject index to over 6,500 genealogy & local history periodicals.
Encyclopedia Online (Grolier)
Access Encyclopedia Americana, Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, New Book of Knowledge, Lands and Peoples and America the Beautiful publications. Especially useful for K-12 students.
Consumer Reports (2011)
Provides ratings and reviews, recommendations, and buying advice on cars, appliances, electronics, money, food, and health products and services.
Operation Paperback
The Friends have participated in “Operation Paperback,” a program that sends donated books to our troops deployed overseas. In 2007, Pat Stephenson started sending paperback books to a group of soldiers serving in Iraq. We expanded our efforts by joining the non-profit program called Operation Paperback and have sent over 5,000 books to soldiers in overseas countries. Most soldiers ask for general fiction, science fiction, classics, westerns, thrillers, and military history. Many soldiers have written back to let us know they have received the books and how much they mean to them and their units. It is gratifying to know we are able to support these soldiers so far from home.
Recycle Print Cartridges
It benefits both the environment, and the
Rochester Public Library. That is the
purpose of an Eagle Scout Leadership Service
Recycling Project designed by Bruce Gregoire,
a member of Boy Scout Troop 29, sponsored by
Rochester Central Lutheran School. He met with several
businesses who’ve agreed to donate used printer
cartridges to the Library. Book marks describing the
program are available at the Library. The public is
invited to put used ink jet, laser printer cartridges or old
cell phones in labeled bins in library entrance or outside
near the bookmobile garage door after hours. A
volunteer will send the cartridges away to be recycled.
“A few
businesses I talked to did not have a plan to recycle their
cartridges,” Bruce said. “I hope my project benefits the
environment and the Library.” Any individual, business,
or organization that wants to participate should drop
their cartridges off at the library.
This program has continued, thanks to Connie Havers and Paul Koeller.
Please encourage your friends to bring their used cartridges to the library.
Last updated: 12/5/11
Read with Me
Magazine rack in childrens
